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RE: Vive la France
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3444
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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 RE: Vive la France (in reply to Paul Magnussen)
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Paul,
I just looked up the New York Times Bestseller list for January 14, 1962. William Lederer's "A Nation of sheep" was listed as No. 5, and it had been on the bestseller list for 38 weeks. Again, while the U.S. Government was not pleased with the book, It does not appear to have been banned or censored at all. I actually read the book back then, and I don't recall any attempts to thwart its publication.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Dec. 6 2015 23:11:11
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3395
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: Vive la France (in reply to Paul Magnussen)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Paul Magnussen
quote:
Are you suggesting that there was a U.S. Government attempt to ban them?
Yes: if I remember correctly, I read that the CIA bought up the entire first run of their next book and destroyed it, and made it clear to the publishers that any attempt at a reprint would be received with extreme disfavour.
But I don’t immediately recall the reference, this was some time ago; it may have been one of the Project Censored books. I’ll have a quick look and see what I can find.
In the meantime:
http://www.salon.com/2011/08/31/censored_by_cia/
Very interesting Paul. I was unaware of any such effort by the CIA to suppress Lederer and Burdick. I would very much like to know more about it. Apparently they were unsuccessful in their attempt to suppress the book. You can get a copy here:
http://www.amazon.com/Nation-Sheep-William-J-Lederer/dp/0393052885
The book would not seem to be very rare at present, $2.59 for a used hardback, $30.00 for a new paperback.
Perhaps it is a case similar in some respects to that of Wilhelm Reich. Reich published numerous works, many of them at odds with mainstream science and psychiatry. But in some English editions of works previously published in German, he broke the law.
Reich believed he had discovered at least two new forms of energy. He built and sold specially designed boxes for people to sit in, called "orgone accumulators." So far, so good. Where he fell afoul of the law was to claim publicly and in pamphlets he distribured that the "orgone accumulator" would cure cancer, the common cold and impotence, among other ills. He was charged with practicing medicine without a license. I'm no lawyer, but I assume he also violated laws against making specific medical claims not vetted by the Food and Drug Administration.
In the English versions of works previously published in German, Reich inserted specific claims of cures by the "orgone accumulators" he was selling. This violated a court injunction against such claims, and Reich's organization was forced to burn a large number of unsold books.
The American Civil Liberties Union objected to the book burnings, but gained little traction. In 1960 the publisher Farrar, Straus & Giroux began re-publishing Reich's English books.
So did the U.S. Government have the power to suppress Reich's "scholarly" publications?
As to the Salon article, part of the security briefing for new employees or contractors of both the CIA and the NSA is the warning that by accepting employment with either agency, the employee agrees that any publication of information gained through such employment is subject to review and approval by the Agency. It's been quite a while, but my recollection was that the new employee was required to sign a specific contract agreeing to this.
Furthermore, in every one of the numerous security agreements I signed, it was specifically stated that although classified information might become public knowledge, the employee was still bound by his or her oath of secrecy.
So it was no surprise to the author in the Salon article that his book would be reviewed, and subject to redaction by the CIA. Nor is it surprising that he would be outraged at the CIA's actions, which he saw as aimed at preventing the release of important and damaging information.
What is particularly troubling, however is the otherwise well documented transgression of the CIA into torture. The Senate report on its investigation, despite attempts by the Republicans to block the publication of its executive summary, revealed much of the wrong doing in this area, though people responsible for these activities have escaped legal consequences, as far as I know.
Two of my friends, one of them the highest ranking non-political appointee in a Department of Defense sub-Cabinet department, were charged with revealing classified information in articles in Aviation Week and Space Technology. The charge was a political ploy by opponents of my friends' objectives, to promote a more vigorous response to Soviet strategic moves. The political attempt failed, since it could not be proved that my friends ever had access to the information in the first place, through official channels.
My friends' attempt to promote a more vigorous response to the Soviets failed as well.
Of the projects I was involved with throughout a long career in the defense business, there is only one of which I have seen no public discussion, despite some of them being conducted at the highest possible levels of secrecy. I am unaware of any malfeasance in that one project (nor of any particularly important consequences), so it doesn't especially concern me that it seems not to be public knowledge.
As has been pointed out, the U.S. Government is not some monolithic force. At times efforts to cover up by one branch of the Government have been foiled by a different branch.
Do parts of the U.S. Government try to cover up inconvenient facts? Yes, no doubt. Is it very successful at it? Not in my experience.
RNJ
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Date Dec. 6 2015 23:51:49
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Ruphus
Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
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RE: Vive la France (in reply to BarkellWH)
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From what I recall the CIA spent $ 2 mio to buy off Reich´s books and destroy them.
The orgone matter served as pretext to remove this, thus hunted by the whole spectrum of political scale and cleriks, brilliant mind and his genius analysis of levering at human drives to manipulate for bondage and economics of exploitation. And it was suceeded with classic dictatorial methods, through diffamation, making collusive denouncers of some of his staff and locking him up under sickening conditions of which he finally died.
He was a unique master of coherent thinking, also evident in protocols of discussions he had with those of his staff who had been turned into judas. Not one word of offence, skipping or any evading, but throughout rational reasoning that cought the betrayers pants down by their own claims and sketch.
To my great dissappointment these protocolls disappeared from the W.R. foundations website, and the administering lady answered to my inquiries over the years basically with: "What protocols?" (Seeing common procedures one is inclinded to think that they have been made obedient there / the protocols confiscated. But I am not excluding the possibility of her now suffering from dementia. Still the question remaining why the documents were taken down.)
I am pulling my hair to not have downloaded them many years ago, for them having been most excellent examples for stringent argumentation. Never seen anything like it.
With the painting of Reich as crazy scientist his discoveries faded from academic sight, and the subjects continued with routines of that time. Reich´s congruency in the meantime confirms with the discoveries in behaviroural and psychological science and anthropology made in the past decades.
In fact it makes for a somewhat bizarre scene to read of them as new and at times ground braking findings, when aware that they have been either explicitely or inherently been provided ~40-80 years before already.
Having helped academic students with their exam work, one of them was on societal matter. The student´s professor was amazed about the congruency and systematics, asking him how he managed to reach to there. And her jaw dropped when he explained how principles extracted by Reich had been applied to the facts.
From my experience no one really reads that stuff to start with. Let alone with an open minded approach. Everyone only fearing to be outcasted as nuts, picking it up with tweezers of arrogance and ignorance if at all.
Only consequential in an upside-down world.
What orgone is concerend, I have not read about it. However, had been assuming some oscillation for the difference between a living and a dead organism already before my personal notion of such theory existing. (Today guessing it to be connected to just the very electric impulses of living being that are for instance being detected by hunting sharks.)
With the diffamation it must not wonder that the dismissing of such a thesis has been just as vehement as there in the same time has been no reproduction and actual examination of it. Quite the kind of at its individual time contemporary collegial diligence and absent examining ambition dedicated to `subversives´ like Pasteur and others.
Had Reich been surfacing today, the collegial reaction would certainly be different from that during the McCarthy era and the intellectual atmosphere of that time. These days the CIA would need to prepare on some aircrafts turbine or such to get rid of him.
Ruphus
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Date Dec. 7 2015 11:36:16
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